Artificial intelligence has rapidly become a core capability in modern software development. For Java developers, integrating these capabilities into existing enterprise applications no longer requires learning entirely new frameworks or interacting directly with complex AI APIs. Spring AI bridges this gap by providing a familiar Spring programming model for working with large language models (LLMs) from providers such as OpenAI, Google Gemini, and others.In this article, we will build a simple AI-powered REST API using Spring Boot and Spring AI while exploring practices that help move beyond proof-of-concept implementations toward production-ready enterprise applications.